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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23918677">prelude: the girl who fell in love with the sky</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/subducting/pseuds/subducting'>subducting</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Come Beyond The Ancient Fog [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Angst, F/F, Fae AU, Sad, Sad Ending, fairytale, thasmin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:32:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23918677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/subducting/pseuds/subducting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Is it a love story?"</p><p>It’s a fairy story, and a story about a mortal girl.</p><p>"Is it a tale of woe?"</p><p>Do mortal girls ever meet any other such end, in fairy tales?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Doctor/Yasmin Khan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Come Beyond The Ancient Fog [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724095</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>prelude: the girl who fell in love with the sky</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Once upon a time, there was a girl who fell in love with the sky.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That won't end well.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No, these things never do. But you don’t choose to visit me to hear stories that end well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t choose to visit you at all.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hush. Once upon a time, there was a girl who fell in love with the sky. That may sound strange, and foolish, but anyone who has looked out into the endless vault of the heavens and felt their chest fill with longing will understand. Once you fall for the sky, there’s no recovering.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Is it a love story?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s a fairy story, and a story about a mortal girl.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Is it a tale of woe?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Do mortal girls ever meet any other such end, in fairy tales?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No, but it doesn’t stop them from falling.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They can’t help themselves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The girl was bright and fierce, with dark deep eyes and dark hair she always kept twisted back. Long, clever fingers wound it carefully every day, a ritual at the dawn before she headed out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What did the girl do?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She was in training to be a knight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But she fell in love with the sky?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She couldn’t help herself. She took up sword and shield because she thought it would slay the darkness twisting in her own chest. Something crawled in her heart and tried to eat it all up. She needed to keep it safe, so she built a cage, and it fluttered so much more for it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did the darkness leave?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She beat it back. Every day she filled her chest with light. Kind words from her family, promises she made to herself. The sight of flowers snowdrops pushing through the winter shows. A smile offered by a peasant child. She collected them and stored them, like buttons and feathers and bits of string in her chest.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>How do words and flowers beat darkness?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Darkness cannot survive where light is nurtured.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>How did she fall in love with the sky?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She looked up.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That was all it took. Her eyes went from the ground, and all things living and real, to the heavens. The sky isn’t real the way the Earth is. Down here, soil and honey, sap and fur, everything is tangible, and even the magic is grounded. But the sky makes promises, and hints at the unknown and impossible.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire was out in the woods on a hunter’s moon. She had been warned that the forest wasn’t the same, on those cold full moon nights, but she was brave and noble, and keen to prove herself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The moon shivered in the sky overhead, so very bright. It drew her eye and like a rabbit before a snake she was hypnotised. Things look different by moonlight, and the familiar paths of her forest were twisted and strange.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did she get lost?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hopelessly. All her bravery and tenacity were unravelled by the whisper-soft magic of moonlight. She sank into the trees and wandered in a daze, her sword held limply in her hand. She forgot why she was in the woods, and she forgot to be cautious.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What was she meant to be doing?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A wolf was causing trouble for the villages in the forest. She was going to slay it, and return it’s head to her lord-knight. She wanted to do it for the villagers, not for the glory, but most of all she wanted something to quicken her blood. She thrilled to test herself, and that lessened the darkness too.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I thought she beat the darkness by nurturing light?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s more than one way to kill darkness. There are as many ways as there are stars in the sky, and the girl sometimes tired of the slow gathering of goodness. Some nights, when her heart was rattling the bars of its cage and the darkness was snarling around the outside of her walls, she longed to be more powerful than both.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Is that why she went into the woods alone?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I couldn’t say. It may well have been. Some might call it fate. Or perhaps she was simply doing her duty as a squire. But that cool night she looked up and saw something above her she would never leave behind.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Above her head, the sky was alive with shimmering, the stars winking and fluttering at her, and she felt her own heart shudder in response. The sky moved through her, and she breathed in the night, making it part of her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did the sky love her back?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sky cannot love the way mortals do. But she certainly caught it’s attention. Her earnest love and bold heart shone in the darkness, to those who could see.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Who can see such things?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Only those with the oldest eyes. And the squire had caught the eye of night herself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A winking star detached itself from the cloth of the heavens and blazed down to the Earth. The girl had seen falling stars before, but this time it didn’t flash and fade. The glow got neither and closer, until something crashed through the trees a little while away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What was it?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A fallen star, or a demon. Or a sorceress, or a wish.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Be serious.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I am. Believe me or don’t, but I speak truly. It was a fallen star, a glittering piece of the sky. The squire crept towards it, eyes drinking the wonder in greedily, lost in the shine. And when she reached the centre of the light, she saw a figure. A pale stranger was picking herself from the ground, and her milk-white skin glowed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire gasped, and drew the attention of the stranger, whose face was as old as the sky and as young as the night, filled with mischief and revelry, and sorrow and death. She moved fluidly, leaving no sign of her presence, no footprints or breath. The squire was frozen helplessly, as easily as if she’d been turned to stone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You shine so bright,” said the woman, cloaked in flowing robes of stardust.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not as brightly as you, Lady Night,” replied the squire, remembering her manners and knowing instinctively who she spoke to. Night smiled indulgently, wandering closer and reaching pale fingers forwards to touch the Squire’s face with the barest pressure of her fingertips. It left the squire’s face cool, the frozen touch of night very present in her Lady’s skin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You look to me from up there as I do to you from down here,” Lady Night said, a wide and plentiful smile opening her face. Showers of stars sparkled in her grin, and auroras shimmered behind her eyes. The squire could do little more than stare, although after a moment her courtly graces rejoined her and she stooped to one knee, head bowed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stand up, fair squire,” Lady Night said, and the squire did as she was bade, still gazing wonderingly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why have you chosen to visit me?” The squire was barely older than a child, and her voice trembled with nerves. A smile as sharp as ice cold comets knifed across Lady Night’s fair features. “Don’t you think you’re worth visiting?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The squire has a point.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire shone in the night as much as the Night shone in the squire’s world. But the lady hadn’t just come for the shine. She could read the darkness in the young woman’s chest, and knew there were ways for her to chase it away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Why would Night want to chase darkness away?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Night chose to appear as shining, to the squire, but she was darkness as well. She was the last sliver of moonlight vanishing behind a cloud and leaving you to the wolves, she was the pitch blackness of the woodland at night, she was the deep cold of the ocean where sun never shone. She was more darkness than anything, and she hated it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Night hated what she was?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Being the darkness was lonely to her. Few travellers moved under her sky, and she spoke to her stars but they only echoed her own words back at her, a tinny melody of chattering echoes. So she wrapped herself in the light of the brightest star she could find and went to play with a burning mortal, just for a while. A mortal who had a pure soul but a heart clouded with sadness.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A mortal like her?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A mortal like her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And through the woods they walked, Night asking the squire about her life, her world. The squire spoke readily, and Night laughed and chatted, and the squire began to forget that the woman she spoke to was the darkness between the stars, the void before dawn, the danger in the night. And Night delighted in the squire’s company- so warm and living, pulsing with newness and life, different from the cold currents of the sky.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The woods were different in the company of Night, to the squire. The air shimmered and danced, the darkness was friendlier, comforting even. She forgot that dawn would ever come until Night paused, eye on the horizon as they reached the edge of the woodland. Pale pink light was filling the sky, and the squire felt her heart sinking.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Will you come again?” she asked, gazing desperately at her lady’s face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be waiting after sunset,” promised Night, and when the squire blinked she was gone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did Night come back?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Oh, yes. Many times, in fact. She walked with the squire through the night, showing her her realm. She pointed out constellations and taught the girl to read the stars. They went together through the forest trails and the squire discovered all the herbs that are more potent under cover of darkness, learned to identify them by their smell in the cool, damp air. Some nights the squire couldn’t come, exhausted from her training, and Night sat and waited, and wondered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire felt her heart lighten as time went on, and the nightfall began to be to her a second sunrise, the beginning, exciting and desperate and precious. And every dusk, there was Lady Night, in a shimmering robe of deep blue, gazing at the squire with such deep fondness in those ancient eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>So Night did fall in love back!</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yes and no. Night cannot love like you and I, remember that. She only is, and you can love her all you want, but that doesn’t mean she understands the mortal world, and what it is to love, and to want. But she did begin to relish the squire’s presence more and more, and what had been idle curiosity and hunger for banishing dark became a different sort of hunger, a need that hadn’t been there before. And in the meantime, Night taught the squire how to fend the darkness off that so often tried to take route around her heart. Tenderly, she guided her hands, instructing her in the ways of the most ancient of combats- darkness against light. It was a struggle Night knew well, for it happened across her sky, endlessly and forever, and it raged within her as fiercely as it could in any being, a cataclysm of opposites hidden behind a benign and patient smile.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire realised that Night was sad some time after they met, when the moon had grown and shrunk and grown again. She was late arriving one night and as she crept through the trees, she found Night there, sat on the ground, shoulders curved like the crescent in the sky and tears of darkness and stars sliding twinkling down her cheeks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My Lady!” the squire gasped, and Night looked up in shock, surprised.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Why was Night crying?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire dropped to her knees and reached a hand out to Night, blazing warm to her Lady’s cool skin. Night shook her head, brushing away the tears she wept and rubbing them between her fingers, where they turned to stardust. She touched her shimmering fingertips to the squire’s chest, and they sunk into the girl’s skin, the fire lighting in her heart. “I’m not crying because of you,” she breathed, as the squire gasped as starlight burned her veins, “I’m crying because of who I am.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re the most wonderful person I’ve known,” the squire said, shaking her head, “Why would you cry? You’re Night. You’re beautiful and serene, you’re rest, you’re safety.” She touched Night’s face, and more tears sprang forward as Night shook her head.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You don’t know me, fair squire,” she said sadly, “You only know what I’ve shown you. But I could show you other things and you wouldn’t like me so well.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t care what you show me,” the squire declared, all darkness and doubt in her heart banished, “I could never change how I feel about you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Night laughed then, a sad, silvery sound that set the squire’s teeth on edge. “Oh, my squire,” she sighed, “You don’t know what you’re saying.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When the squire lent forwards to meet Night’s lips with her own, Night couldn’t keep herself from responding. She ached for the squire’s loving support, feeling traitorous for letting her give it so freely, when she was the night, she was darkness and chaos, and endless pain. But the squire had made up her mind, let it be led by her foolish heart, and the warmest most loving kiss just barely managed to raise Night’s cheeks to a tender flush.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stayed arm in arm, laid still for once, speaking in quiet tones, as Night ran her cool fingers through the squire’s dark hair, lacing them and unlacing, as if she couldn’t keep truly still. And the squire sighed and sighed, heart filled with Night’s star fire and aching with sadness.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Will you be back tomorrow night?” asked the squire, as they walked slowly towards the edge of the woods. Night had been quiet, much quieter than usual, and the squire was filled with a dread she couldn’t explain. Her love’s gaze was distant and indecipherable as when they had first met, but her shine had dimmed to almost nothing. Night turned her eyes on the squire, eyebrows pulled together in worry.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You can’t keep seeing me, burning one,” she said, twisting a lock of the squire’s hair and tucking it behind her ear, “You belong in the world of the daylight. It’s cruel of me to keep you coming here at night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sun was almost at the horizon, and the squire was dreadfully afraid.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Please be here tomorrow night,” she begged, eyes bright.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Night vanished without reply.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did she come back the next night?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire was convinced she wouldn’t see her beloved again, and ran to the woods almost as soon as darkness had fallen, her heart hammering. She found Night there in their clearing, but she was different somehow. Her star-bright eyes were frozen, the curve of her shoulders sharper. The squire paused for the first time, a thrill running over her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My lady?” she asked, voice pale and thin in the heavy air.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Night turned her eyes on the squire, queenly and desolate.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Squire, you are so bright,” she murmured softly, voice cascading like distant thunder, “You need to live in the world of the sun. I am too dark and dangerous for you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What have you done to put me in danger?” the squire pleaded, seeing only light, as ever, in Night, “I don’t believe you would ever harm me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I already have,” Night’s voice was gentle, but it was sharp and painful as a knife, “I let you come out to the woods night after night, and look at you. You can’t live half in my world and half in your own. It’ll kill you, my love, and I wont have it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire frowned, shaking her head, trying to ignore the way Night’s words buried themselves in her skull and snagged her thoughts. She was tired, yes, purple shadows plaguing her eyes, and she was haggard, but all squires were exhausted until they built up stamina. And so what if the morning light hurt her eyes, and she found it impossible to concentrate? She shook her head defiantly, but Night knew she had won, and her darkness lessened, the regal, cold expression falling into one tender as the first bird song of spring.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can’t stop seeing you,” whispered the squire, bowing her head.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I won't leave you,” promised Night, leaning her forehead against her darling’s.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Their fingers laced, burning warmth and searing cold, and they stayed until the sun’s light stole over the horizon, and Night wasn’t afraid at all as she felt, finally, the dawn’s searing rays melt through her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The squire watched, and wept, as her beloved faded before her, that enigmatic smile and sparkling eyes finally dimming against the sweeping light of dawn, and motes of silver light pressed into the squire’s body, a different kind of darkness settling over her heart.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But night still exists, doesn’t she?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Every night is different, born like the dawning of a new day to diminish and vanish. The squire’s longing and love were so strong that her Night was kept going, called back and strengthened night after night by the memory of a mortal. But Night was never meant to last. That’s what mortals fall in love with. The promise and mystery and newness of each evening, the quiet age of the late night. Night was born with the memories of the skies that came before her, and died with the grief they had all known, and never passed on. The grief of being impossible, of existing in such a high and lonely place. In a way, she was lucky. Not every night is so fondly remembered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What happened to the squire?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She would forever wish for the return of her Night, no matter how long she lived and how many wonderful days were filled. But no longer would she feel the tug to the woods, no longer walk by the light of her pale lady. The darkness on her heart was companionable, the remains of her weeping love. And it always tugged and strained at nighttime when the stars came out, recognising it’s home among them, in spite of having chosen the squire, and eventually knight, as it’s resting place. That little piece of sky was forever hers, and she was forever longing to reunite with the rest of her love.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>- THE END  - </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is experimental but ties into a longer AU I'm working on that's not in the same story as this one but tangentially related thematically. Consider this a primer, I guess. and if this isn't enough to whet your appetite, peek here too: https://subducting.tumblr.com/post/616424598616113152/concept-for-a-fae-thirteenth-doctor-for-a-fic-im</p></blockquote></div></div>
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